‘My family’

The Civic Memorial girls cross country team poses with its Madison County small-school division championship plaque on Oct. 3 at Alhambra City Park. The Eagles won their first county title in program history.

After just two years, Jake Peal is enjoying his time as Civic Memorial head cross country coach.

“They’re my family,” Peal said. “I do anything for them and I think they do the same for me.”

The Eagles have been successful in both the boys and girls divisions in Peal’s short tenure as head coach. The boys team won a Madison County small-school division championship and qualified for sectionals as a team last year. The girls squad won its first county small-school division title in program history this fall.

“Things are really headed up for both guys and girls programs,” Peal said.

The boys and girls teams are setting their sights on turning in a strong postseason. They will be competing in the Class 2A Jacksonville Regional on Oct. 21 at Community Park in Jacksonville.

In last year’s Jacksonville Regional, the CM boys beat out Sacred Heart-Griffin by two points for the sixth and final sectional-qualifying spot, while the girls had one sectional qualifier in Zoey Lewis.

Peal said he’s pretty optimistic about his girls team in this year’s regionals.

“We have a really good chance to qualify as a team and I’m really excited for that,” the CM coach said.

A year ago, CM had just two girls. This year, the Eagles have seven runners, six of them are newcomers.

Freshmen Addie Callies and Reese Borth, sophomores Madelyn Ehlers, Danielle Dankenbring and Kati Wells and senior Ryan Allison are competing in cross country for the first time.

Callies said she’s enjoying the opportunity to run with her older brother, Cohl, who is the No. 1 runner on the boys team.

“I think it’s much different from what I’ve been going through,” the freshman said. “The longest I ran in track was 800 meters, so that’s a big difference. I’ve gotten pretty well with this, I really worked hard and I’ve gotten pretty good.”

Allison, the team’s captain, had sixth-place finishes in the Madison County meet and the Jacksonville Invitational.

“She’s been a huge pickup this year,” Peal said.

Lewis, a sophomore, is the only returning runner on the girls team. In addition to her trip to sectionals, Lewis also won the county small-school division individual championship in ‘16. This year, she has finished in the top 30 three times.

CM won the small-school division title with 26 points in the county meet on Oct. 3 at Alhambra City Park. The Eagles had five runners earn medals.

“I think we worked pretty hard for it,” said Callies, who finished fourth in the girls race. “I think we practiced very hard for it. We knew that we could win, we kept up with it and we got it.”

The Eagles ended Roxana’s three-year run as small-school champs.

“I’m very happy with the girls on how well they competed,” Peal said. “The last few weeks, we’ve been taking big steps forward in our fitness and gained a lot of momentum.”

The CM boys’ three-year run as small-school champs came to an end in this year’s county meet as they finished second to Father McGivney.

“That’s a heck of a Father McGivney team,” Peal said. “I considered us the underdog. I’ve seen how well they raced this season. They’re very good and I thought it would take the perfect day from us to beat them, but our guys really got after it and tried to hang, so I’m really proud of how they competed.”

Last year, the CM boys won three meets, including the county small-school division title at Granite City.

This fall, CM won the Southwestern Quad meet, placed third at the Alton and Carrollton Invitationals and finished fourth at the George Havens Invitational at Principia College.

The Eagles return five runners from last year’s team — senior Cohl Callies and juniors Parker Borth, Drake Stephenson and Colton Hyman and sophomore Drake Stephenson. Callies has been the team’s top performer for most of the season, finishing in the top 30 seven times. He won the county small-school title a year ago.

“Even if we may not win all of (the meets) or if we’re not the very best, we’re making our coach proud and making ourselves proud and that’s the best thing that we can do and that’s one of the things that I’m really happy about with our team,” Callies said. “We’re always there for each other.”

Peal is a 2011 CM grad. He replaced Mark Beatty — who is now the athletics director at Carrollton — as the Eagles’ head coach last year.

He said he was looking forward to this year’s cross country season since practice began in August.

“We had a very successful summer training,” Peal said. “We had great numbers, probably the best numbers in my three years here. Things are definitely swinging up and we’re continuing to get better and building a culture of working hard and becoming better student-athletes and better people.”